Staffers say Rep. Gooch displayed tasteless behavior

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Two legislative staff members who filed sexual harassment charges against former Rep. John Arnold said yesterday they were also subjected to crude behavior of Rep. Jim Gooch one evening last summer at a legislative convention.

But Gooch said his actions were harmless and the two women are retaliating against him.

The setting was a bar in Mobile, Alabama where many Kentucky staffers, legislators and lobbyists had retired during the Southern Legislative Conference.

Staff members Cassaundra Cooper and Yolanda Costner said that Gooch approached a group they were sitting with, pulled a pair of panties out of his pocket and tossed them on the table.

"He kinds of saunters up and tosses ladies underwear on the table, and said, 'I'm looking for the lady who lost these... or something to that effect," Cooper said. "I was shocked, thinking, 'You did not just do that.'...It was a shock to all of us."

Coster gave a similar description. "It was tasteless...Everyone was embarrassed," Costner said.

Gooch, a Providence Democrat who roomed in Frankfort with Arnold before Arnold resigned last September, recalled displaying the panties to the group, though not tossing them on the table.

Gooch said about a half hour earlier that evening, a woman he did not know and who was apparently not from Kentucky, walked up to him and stuffed the panties in his pocket.

"I was almost shocked," Gooch said of the unknown woman's action.

So when he saw the group of staffers and others a little while later, he said he pulled the panties out of his pocket and said, "You're not going to believe what just happened to me," and told them the story.

Cooper recalled the incident in interviews with reporters, including those from WFPL and cn2, early Monday after Gooch had objected to a motion by Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, to commend Cooper and Costner and third staffer Gloria Morgan for having the courage to file complaints against Arnold.

Gooch said he objected to passing the motion because Costner and Cooper have a pending lawsuit against Arnold over their sexual harassment charges. He said it would be inappropriate for lawmakers to pass a resolution that took one side in that pending case.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo initially upheld Gooch's objection and did not bring the resolution to a vote. However, after later receiving advice from the staff of the Legislative Ethics Commission that there would be no problem caused by passing the resolution, the House passed it by voice vote.

Gooch said Cooper and Costner's comments were a retaliation against him for stalling the resolution. "They said this just because I didn't act politically correct," Gooch said.

Gooch said the incident in Alabama happened nine months ago and the two staffers had never complained to him -- or the ethics commission -- about it.

Cooper and Costner both said they filed no complaints because Gooch's actions did not involve the more serious improper touching involved in the Arnold complaints. Cooper said she mentioned it to reporters recently only to illustrate the kind of behavior she said that female legislative staffers must tolerate.

"If we reported everything that happened around here, we'd never get any work done. There's always something inappropriate happening," Cooper said. "This is just another piece of that culture that we have to deal with."

Stumbo said late Monday that the charges against Arnold are serious, but he rejected the suggestion that charges against Arnold show that the House tolerates harassment in the workplace.